Who am I kidding…pen cups. As in plural.

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Category Archives: Diplomat Pens

Diplomat is a company that’s often overlooked in pen circles, and I think that’s too bad. I own four of their fountain pens—the economical Softtouch Magnum, a mid-range Optimist Loop, the visually distinctive Aero, and this classic looking Excellence. While four pens is not a large sample size, each nib writes so smoothly that I’m convinced that Diplomat values nib performance at least as much as good design and build quality, no matter the price. The same cannot be said of every pen company.

My latest acquisition—this Excellence Rhombus fountain pen—has been getting constant use. With a medium steel nib, this pen wrote right out of the box and is incredibly smooth with just a hint of spring. Pure joy.

The excellent Excellence has good looks, a nice weight, and a writing performance that continues to make me smile.

The Diplomat Excellence Rhombus fountain pen discussed here was purchased from The Pen Company, at a discount, to facilitate this review. Views expressed here reflect my personal opinion and experiences with the pen.

It’s raining, and I’m wearing fleece in August, so it must be my vacation week. Ah, no worries— it’s still nice to have a break from work, to sleep a little later, and to take a few field trips. Today we’re heading to the closest Cheesecake Factory (which is about an hour away) because we have a gift card burning a hole in our pockets. Yum.

Over the weekend we took a BIG field trip to the DC Supershow—reportedly the biggest pen show in the world. I’ve only ever been to this show— last year was my first time—so I don’t have anything to compare it to. Even though I’m definitely an introvert, and sometimes get overwhelmed by people, I had a BLAST! This is my element. THESE are my people. If I could live at a pen show forever, I would.

[The show is buzzing!]

I was feeling a little anxious about just going for Sunday but we did so because we wanted to minimize the time our four dogs were boarded, with Boo being fragile and Flapjack being a young pup. My brain kept screaming “ALL THE GOOD PENS WILL BE GONE!!” but of course that was not the case.

I won’t go into details in this post (the husband and the cheesecake are calling me!), but I’m happy to report that this introvert loved every moment of the day, loved seeing old friends and making new ones, loved letting the pens that were meant for me find me. I haven’t had a day this fun in a long time.

My husband isn’t into pens as a user, but he’s a talker and has enough interest that he’s actually a great pen show ally. A couple of the pens I purchased were the direct result of Fred’s chats with the sellers. Thanks to Fred, we uncovered a very cool connection with the folks who are the US distributors for Diplomat Pens, had a long and lovely talk with Syd Saperstein of Wahl-Eversharp, and had a great visit with Chris and Marc of Write Notepads & Co. And because we were missing our pups, we bonded immediately with Marc’s dog, Nico, who happily napped on their display table. She is a DREAM dog.

[Nico, the Write Notepad & Co. Ambassador]

On Monday, we spent time in Baltimore prior to the Orioles-Yankee game, and took up Chris and Marc on their invitation to see where and how Write Notepads are born. They were wonderful hosts, as was Nico, and that visit was a definite high point of our trip.

This post is short, and slim on details, cuz I gotta run. I’ll write all about our trip and my pens in upcoming posts, but I wanted to let you know that this introvert had the best time ever! The pens are great, but the people made the show, and our trip, extraordinary.